Republican Ben Carson declares bid for president

Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, speaks as he announces his candidacy for president of the United States at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts on May 4, 2015 in Detroit, Mich.

By

MatthewDolan

ReidJ. Epstein

Benjamin S. Carson, former head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, returned to his hometown in Detroit on Monday to declare his bid for the Republican nomination for president.

“I’m Ben Carson and I’m a candidate for president of the United States,” said Carson, speaking before several hundred people in the city’s downtown Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts.

He joins what is expected to be a crowded GOP field of political veterans and first-time office seekers including Carson.

The official campaign rolled out gradually over the weekend, starting with several television appearances airing Sunday by Carson. They were followed by early morning visits to Detroit’s African-American history museum and a public high school named in his honor. An anticipated, subsequent visit to Iowa, however, was put off because Carson wanted to attend to his mother who has fallen gravely ill, his campaign said.

Born into poverty in Detroit on Sept. 18, 1951, Carson was raised by a single mother. He graduated from Yale and the University of Michigan’s medical school, then moved to Baltimore. At age 33, he became the youngest head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins and the first African-American to hold the post.

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